


candyfloss dreams

by CrazyLaughter



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Accidental Love Confessions, Awkwardness, F/F, Female Harry, Female Harry Styles, Female Louis Tomlinson, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15164000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyLaughter/pseuds/CrazyLaughter
Summary: Harry and Louis are both girls, who are stuck in an attic and have plenty of things to talk about.





	candyfloss dreams

 By the time Harry has gathered all of her belongings; her scratched down laptop, a few white sheets of paper, a hardbound textbook and has slid a black pen behind her ear, she sees Niall sashay into the room with a swing in his step. He's dressed in a grey button down, which is utterly a sight sore eyes because the lad hardly was seen without a plain white shirt. Harry swore up and down that they were all his wardrobe consisted of. His hair was poorly shaped into a pompadour. He should surely know that it would be undone the minute he struts out into the street; with him walking around like his body doesn't belong to him.

It was obvious where he was going to, looking like someone who's showered. Niall dressed up for one thing and one thing only. Parties.  
He stops short when he spots her. "Why are you still in your jammies?" He demands. He points to all the paraphernalia spread out on the bed. "What's all this for? Why aren't you ready?"

"I'm not coming," says Harry, dryly. They've been over this.

Niall gasps like she's said something outrageously scandalous, perhaps something that wasn't way out of the world. "But, it's a-"

"A party, yeah, I know," she sighs. "Not my scene. Not today."

"But-"

Harry tucks everything under her left arm, pats her back pocket with her other hand and begins to stride out of the room. "I have a paper due in two days. I have to get to that."

"Two days?! That's a lot." He tails behind Harry as she walks out of her room into the corridor, feet padding annoyingly against the wooden floor. "Where are you going?"

"The attic."

At that, a deathly silence comes from Niall's end. He stops her by the shoulder. "Are you okay, Haz?"

Surprisingly, Harry was alright. She chuckles to herself before turning back to him. "I promise I'm okay. I need some peace and quiet. The attic gives it to me. That and some inspiration."

Niall frowns like he wants to ask her one more time just to make sure. He even opens his mouth twice and doesn't say anything. He watches as Harry reaches up with her vacant hand and pulls the rope tied to the handle of the attic door. With one yank, the door falls down, as soon as it opens, a ladder slides out in two increments. "Text me if you need anything," he says when she's got her foot on the bottom rung.

"I will," answers Harry with an assuring smile. She knows he'll be too plastered to even read her texts. "Enjoy yourself." When Niall begins to go down the stairs, she climbs the rest of the ladder and pushes her books onto the wooden deck once her head sticks into the room in the attic, where the light is surprisingly on. Once she heaves herself up, she pulls the ladder up and slams the door down.

Just as it falls shut, a simultaneous sound of something dropping cracks at Harry's ears. She whips around to find Louis, legs folded and crossed, phone clattered on the floor, one earbud out and one in, cigarette poised between two of her fingers and her mouth dropped open. It takes a moment for Harry to gather her thoughts and come out of her initial shock. "W-What are you doing here?" she asks in a voice that comes out in a squeak.

Louis purses her lips and shrugs. "I always come here. I've come by here so many times, snuck up here right under your noses. I'm surprised you noticed after so long. I like this pathetic excuse of an attic."

Harry's eyes rake over the latter, hopefully in an inconspicuous way. She is dressed in a mint-green tank top that sank too low on her chest, atop a comfortable looking pair of black shorts. Her hair is dishevelled as it always was, fringe dictating over most of her forehead and the end of her hair curling under her ears. Her Vans are sitting behind her pale feet, which are grazing the cotton-insulation. She could never not notice details about Louis; it came with the territory of fancying her.

"Why don't you come stay here? Krista was saying how she has a big room and she'd like to partition it and rent it to someone else." Though she was saying it all airily, Harry doesn't think she can handle being around Louis so much without exploding.

Louis laughs like it's funny. Which it isn't, because even though Harry would explode with her around, she's masochistic and she still wants to acquaint with Louis and attempt to steal her attention. Niall would never approve. "I can't even handle Zayn's presence in my flat, imagine me with a house of people and a bloody roommate." She shudders, her shoulders wiggling dramatically. "I love Niall, but honestly, dealing with him all time would drive me crazy."

Harry laughs at that. Smiling at her, Louis goes back to looking at her phone.

Desperate to fill in the silence and to talk to Louis, Harry begins. "The others don't come here," She explains. She scoops up her things and sits in the far corner by the semicircular window, adjacent to Louis while facing her side, only a few metres away . She adjusts herself among the insulation and spreads out her legs. Around Louis, she's always been twitchy and with the attention zeroed in on her, Harry hopes she doesn't jerk out a leg and catch the corner of Louis's eye in the most unconventional way. "It's mostly my haunt."

Louis widens her kohl-lined eyes at that. "D'you mind if I stay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Harry waves at her to sit down though she hasn't even gotten up. She feels stupid for the immediate enthusiasm she's let out in her voice. "It's alright. Stay. At least I won't be alone."

Louis waits until Harry opens her laptop and pushes her glasses up her nose to say something again. "Where are all the others?"

Harry squints at the screen of the empty Word document, not bothering to look up. She feels nervous and she'd rather not have it show in her eyes. The glasses do a great job concealing things like that. "Uh, Niall is out partying, Liam is staying the night at another friends, Mona and Krista are out shopping. Just me in the house now."

"And me," Louis supplies unhelpfully, like Harry's insides aren't burning with the acknowledgement of that fact. Of them alone, in the sodding attic of all places. "Both of us here." She barrels on like it doesn't have any effect. Louis Tomlinson is so modest that she doesn't know what she does to people. "I like your glasses," she declares. "The cat-eye thing really suits you."

"Oh, uh," Harry has to tell herself to breath deeply when she looks up to find Louis's friendly smile and quit blushing because soon enough she'll have to call the fire department on her cheeks. "Thanks."

Out of nowhere, Louis realises that she has a lit cigarette in her hand when the ash falls on her bare thigh and she moves quickly to stub it in the ashtray beside her. "Sorry 'bout that," she says sheepishly.

"Why?"

"I know you have asthma," she explains like it's obvious. Harry's heart flutters and the voice in her head sings she remembered! in a symphony that sounds like a couple of untuned guitars. "Plus, I don't need one. It's a privilege-"

"Not a necessity," Harry finishes along with her. That was one of the things Louis first told Harry when they first met. "I remember."

Having Louis here, in one of her favourite places in the world- where this room became her world for a while felt wonderful. The outside was suspended for the while Harry was in the attic. It wasn't even a proper attic and she couldn't care. When Liam, Harry and the others were sick of their dormitories half way through their second year, a house hunt took up three weeks of their time before they found this little crooked two storey house with no much space, but too many bedrooms, right in the dead end of a street, ten minutes from their university. It got cramped sometimes and throwing parties was a pain, but it was for cheap since the landlord said no one would rent it out.

A month in, when Harry took up the courage to pull down the handle in the ceiling, she discovered it in its glory. [It](https://roofingaboveall.com/insulation-contractors-detroit/) was small, smelled like smoky wood, creaked when she walked around on it. It wasn't even an attic, the landlord had said. There were huge duct pipes looking like they were made of aluminium foil that covered one side and pink-cotton insulation that belted out on the other. Previously, they had been HVAC system in there before the owners resorted to electrical heating units. The machinery was gone, but the ducts sat around and the pink-cotton insulation stayed. By the time the team had moved it, everything was cleaned up and the cotton was fluffed up and Harry pretended she was in the clouds every time she was there.

Having Louis Tomlinson in the clouds with her was the ultimate dream.

After a while, Harry has finished two paragraphs of her Commensalism writing assignment, she cracks her knuckles, wiggles her socked toes. Pushing the laptop aside, her back cracks when she stands up. "I'm getting a glass of water, do you want anything?" She says to Louis who's already looking at her.

"No," chirps Louis.

Harry saunters over to the door, walks around the ladder and bends down to pull the handle. It rattles but it doesn't budge. It doesn't budge.  
That wasn't supposed to happen.

Trying not to push herself into panic mode, Harry tries again to open the door, but it doesn't seem like it's going to open any time now. Nervously giggling, she turns back to Louis who's watching her curiously. "It does that sometimes," she explains. "The door gets jammed. Just rotten luck."

Louis looks like she isn't particularly bothered by it. She sets her phone down coolly and shrugs. "We can survive till one of them fetches us. We'll be fine."

No. Harry is not going to be fine. She's going to die in this little pathetic attic, embarrassingly right in front of Louis and there'll be no oxygen. "Yeah, I guess," she ends up answering. Trying to keep up her smile without letting it dangerously slip into a grimace, she makes her way back to her spot and plops down. She knew Niall would be too drunk to come home and help them, so she texts Liam about it. Then, she closes the laptop and pushes it aside, placing her glasses on them. Reaching out towards the corner where the cotton was climbing the junction of the wall, she peels it back to reveal a stash of Jelly Babies. She takes a handful from the already open bag and throws it towards Louis.

After catching it, Louis plucks one out and pops it her mouth. "You have sweets hidden here," she asks with one side of her cheek. "That's sick. Didn't think you ate sweets, Harriet. You're the healthy type."

"Harriet isn't my-"

  
Louis tuts. "You're lying to yourself, love. I pretend me name is Louis because Louisa is a stupid name."

"But, you like being called Louis, yeah?"

"Yeah," agrees Louis. "Me mum says I took the 'man of the house' title a little too seriously."

Harry hums at that. "Louisa doesn't sound bad, really. But, Harriet really isn't my-"

"Shh," says Louis, with a corner of her lips hitched up. She places the bag of sweets beside her and fiddles with her hands. "Why aren't you at that party? Niall would've dragged you out if it were up to him."

"Not my scene," she repeats like she did with Niall. "I mean, I like going to parties sometimes and drinking. Getting drunk is fun when you're with your friends. But, I've not been feeling like it lately. I do disastrous things when I drink and nobody does anything about it. Like, one of those times I bought home samples of food colouring and dyed half of Niall's wardrobe. He wouldn't talk to me for two weeks after that." At that, Louis laughs brash and loud and it makes her heart buzz in her chest. "He deserved that. I have no fashion sense, but even I know that too many white shirts are a menace." She sighs to herself, smiling. "So, I became the designated driver for a while, but everyone in university drinks like a fish in water. And being held responsible for all the nonsense they do wasn't worth it. I like me my peace and quiet."

Louis grins wolfishly, teeth looking like they came out of a toothpaste advertisement. The crow's feet by her eyes make her look so beautiful that it makes Harry stop. Just stop. The hair on her arms raises. "Tell you what. One time when we were in college, Niall cocked up pretty bad." She beams like she's been taken over by nostalgia; smiling at the ground between them, a bright smile adorning her face. "It was a week after Niall's 18th birthday that he decided he wanted to get sloshed. We've obviously drank when we were underage, but he just wanted to go around telling everyone he was legal. And... He got sloshed. I was responsible for getting him home so I had around two beers, was it?" She asks herself, quickly talking right after. "Yes, two beers. It was about eleven in the night and I went down to the loo. He was gone when I came back and I found him groping a street lamp outside the bar." She huffs out a laugh alongside Harry's. "He was completely sloshed. When he saw me, he ran down the street yelling, making siren noises."

"No!" Harry gasps out, between fits of laughter. Her stomach hurts from how good it is to laugh so much. She's keeled over, and slid down until only her head is supported by the wall.

"Oh, yes," Louis nods seriously. "I found him a while later. Turns out his siren noises were impressive, because a bleeding copper caught him. Even then, he was so out of it that he begged to tell his mum that he loved her. I don't even know if the officer was irritated or if he found it funny. Niall just went on... He listed out this huge menu being his last meal and that his future kids would be proud of his valient death."

"Stop, stop," yelps Harry. "I can't- laugh, please-"

Louis chuckles at the state of her. "I'm not finished yet, you clot." She continues. "Though I could have taken him home, the officer insisted they keep him in drunk-tank because of his public indecency and obviously, I had to stay with him because I was being a good friend. Imagine my plight when I had to explain this to his parents when he hadn't come home on time."

The anecdote is done and it takes a minute after that for Harry to finish laughing. In the end, she's left with a few hiccuping giggles and a diminishing grin as she feels self-conscious enough to sit up straight and feel her cheeks go ruddy again. "Sorry- I. I'm sorry."

Louis's gaze on her softens on her. "You have nothing to be sorry for," she says in her melting voice. "It was funny and you laughed. You shouldn't ever feel like you must watch yourself even while laughing."

Unintentionally, Harry's face that feels like a bloody heating pad burn pleasantly than it did out of embarrassment before. She can feel herself smiling without even wanting to.

"Is that why you come up here often?" Louis asks, gentleness in her tone. "You don't appreciate the chaos sometimes and you like it to be peaceful and quiet, like you said?"

Harry feels a little dubious in answering. She looks away, biting her lip. "Yes, I suppose. That is partially true. When the world is a mess outside, here is the place I can come to." She shrugs like it isn't a big deal, when in fact it is. Most people have always sneered, never quite understood. Louis's face says she's trying to understand and that's enough for Harry. It only makes her feel more things. "I come here so when I feel jittery, or when I want to get away. When I want to concentrate or when I want to have fun. It's a detail about myself," she sighs ruefully. "Which is why it's so hard for me to let someone stay with me in here. I'd have to trust them."

There's a stunned silence after that. Leaves rustle outside. Dark has completely fallen outside, casting a long shadow through the window next to her. There are stray dogs barking somewhere. Amidst noticing it all, Harry almost doesn't hear what Louis says. "Oh," is all that comes out of her mouth, tenderly.

Louis doesn't look like she's going to run for the hills as soon as Liam comes to open the door. Her survey on Harry's face continues unblinking and expressionless. To make things more light-hearted, Harry decides to speak. "Also, have you seen this place? It's like lying on the clouds."

"Candyfloss clouds," supplies Louis with a blinding grin.

"Exactly!" Harry nearly shouts, enthusiasm taking over her brain and voice. "It makes me feel like I'm on the cover of _Teenage Dream_."

Louis raises a disarming eyebrow at that.

"You know, Katy Perry's album," Harry exclaims, her words working faster than her head and soon enough, she says things she doesn't plan to say. "She's got a great baps, if you ask me-" she stops in the middle of her sentence, turning red for the umpteenth time. Any moment now, she might burst out crying and jump out of the window. If she fits through it.

Louis laughs, but it doesn't sound condescending or disgusted. "Harry, you know it's alright, yeah? It doesn't matter that you think that. I'm not judging you, so stop trying to suffocate yourself." When Harry opens her mouth to argue, she cuts in before she can start. "If it helps, I had my gay awakening when I figured out I fancied Sabrina the Teenage Witch."

"Really?" Harry's eyes bug out of her skull. Though she's seen Louis snog girls, she's never been able to comprehend what Louis would think of her lesbianism. Though she didn't take chances in discussing it with other people.

"Yeah," she says with a cackle. "I ruled out boys when I about, wee little," she gestures to a vague height of how much she might have been. "It's alright to kiss girls and date them and want to have sex with them. It's marvellous, really."

Harry laughs self-deprecatingly. "You'd be the first on that list," she jokes. When she looks up, Louis is watching her solemnly instead of laughing with her. In a split-second, Harry realises that she didn't sound mocking at all- but grave. So painfully grave and possibly desperate. She sounded like she meant it, like she's asking for Louis. Her own words ring in her ears and she feels everything in her crumple under the weight of those words. She wishes she can fit through that window, because she would very much like to jump off in that moment.

The sounds of the knocking floorboard come and Louis has crawled all the in front of her, just a breath away as she slides a cold hand under Harry's chin and lifts it so they can look each other in the eye. "No, it's okay. It's okay."

Harry shakes her head, hoping it'll fall off her neck and roll away because she doesn't want to have this conversation. Six months of keeping it all a secret were gone with the wind. She doesn't even know what to do, all she's known was pining after Louis. Now when it all came crumbling down, what was she supposed to do? Pining more and burning with shame and rejection was all she had left. "I'm sorry- I didn't want- You don't have to-"

"Look at me," says Louis, fiercely. Anybody listening to her would comply easily without a doubt. "It's okay," she says. When Harry tries to duck her head, she makes her look up again. "Hey- you're alright. You're alright. It's okay, love. Honestly, it is."

All Harry can do is shake her head and try not to let her tears fall. And die under Louis's scrutiny. "No, it isn't," she cries. A rogue tear falls anyway and she wants nothing but to disappear. "Louis, I'm sorry."

"Shh," Louis says softly. Her other hand comes to rest on her neck. Her eyes twinkle and there's something sad in her smile- like sympathy or something worse like pity. "Shh," she repeats, wiping at Harry's cheek while her hand still holds her chin up. Her thumb wanders on her face before settling down under Harry's eye. With a stroke under her eyelid, Harry's thoughts fall shut when she realises how close they actually. "When I said it's okay," whispers Louis with a secret glint in her eye. "I meant that it's really, really okay. More than okay. Far from the averageness of okay."

Harry gapes at her, mouth moving like a fish. "What? Louis," she pushes the words out in a mess. She wishes it was what she thinks it is. Not a piece of false hope. She wishes Louis is saying what she wants to hear. "Louis..."

Suddenly, she's pushed further back into the wall and Louis clambers into her till she has a lapful. She makes herself comfortable, smiling as she tucks Harry's hair behind her ears. Then, she cups Harry's face and laughs benignly at her gobsmacked expression. "Can you tell how okay I am with this?"

"Louis," is all she manages to whisper, looking down at her lap and up again, in disbelief.

The hands slide down and loop around her neck. "Are you still in doubt? This not enough for you?" Louis veers down, head tilting to the side. She laughs faintky again at the look on Harry's face. Her eyes close and Harry feels stupid for observing her like that. "Do you think I could kiss you?" she teases. "Or do you still think it's not okay?"

Harry's fists bunch in the cotton under her. "Please..."

When they're finally kissing, Harry can feel all her anxiety fall out of her body. She's being kissed like Louis is looking for sunlight within her and Harry doesn't think she's ever felt this pure before. Or as free; like a coincidence, a gush of cold air comes through underneath her shirt. Louis breaks away for a breath and smiles, looking down at Harry's lips. She clutches Harry's quivering shoulders. "Calm down, now," she takes both of Harry's hands and places them around her waist. "You can touch, babe."

The rest of the air in Harry's lung leaves with a puff.

Louis snakes her fingers into her curls and ruffles them. She kisses her once more before Harry accidentally bites the angle of her mouth. "Calm down," she repeats. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You aren't?" croaks Harry.

"No, not in the near future. I wanted this too, Harry. Was just waiting for you to wake up."

Harry wants to protest and ask her why she didn't make the first move, but she doesn't wanna ruin the moment. Instead, she runs her hands down to Louis's thighs and revels at the feel of bare skin. "Can we snog some more?" She asks unabashedly.

Louis smirks, but complies, sucking her lips and letting them go with a pop. "Your glasses would fog up if they were on," she states. One of her hands trials down the length of her neck, making Harry shiver. Her head sinks down and she presses her lips under Harry's jaw. "We should try that once you're out of your shock."

"Okay," squeaks Harry.

They kiss some more, time starting and stopping between them. Harry picks up some courage and slides her hands up Louis's shorts which makes her stop to simper. "Getting bold, are we?" she whispers to Harry. But, she lays her hands atop Harry's and pushes them up and inside herself. "You gonna let me be your teenage dream, babe? Put my hands on your skin-tight jeans?"

Harry pulls her hands back and pinches her. It feels worth it when Louis laughs into her mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a 500 word drabble, haha.  
> Feedback is appreciated! x


End file.
